Journalistic persecution: A negative relationship between the news media and governments

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to discuss actions taken against journalists for the purpose of repressing their actions and words. The focus of the actions carried out by governments are used as tools to silence journalists for a few reasons discussed in the paper. Acts of persecution are related to legal prescriptions in the legal system of the country – that may call for or allow imprisonment, intimidation and murder. Each act is found by actors to be useful for specific reasons and indicates how journalists face persecution. Many actions carried out by governments occur without the rest of the world knowing. The conclusion of the literature review ultimately shows that there is a severe disconnect between the call to eliminate persecution against journalists and the reaction of the justice system in each state and the international community. One reason that this presents a problem in addressing the issue is that the international community and journalists cannot come to an agreement for how to define journalism and therefore how to offer protections to this vulnerable population. As of today, war correspondents are the only group that have protections, but this group is excluded from the research discussion. The research conducted by me, makes use of the comparative change quasi-experimental approach. Evaluation of literature and a statistical analysis show the negative relationship between the variables: the Freedom of the Press index and the journalists killed in each country. The findings show that there is a significant statistical relationship between the variables, which appear to be related in a positive relationship.